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HARRIEr ELIZABETH CARYL 
ABOUT 1900 



HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 



A MEMORIAL OF 

Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

1834— 1918 



ARRANGED BY 

Florence Dix Class of 1868 

Alice M. Dickey Class of 1876 

Katharine H. Shute Class of 1879 

Of the Girls' High School, Boston 



BOSTON 

Privately Printed 
1919 



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HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 



Tribute beyond the bounds of rhyme, 
To our Sweet Saint of modern time, 
Whose life itself in rhythmic flow, 
A benediction doth bestow. 

"Go forth in peace," that life doth say 

"In childlike trust pursue thy way, 

E'en though it lead through gloom and night — 

Abiding faith brings inward light." 

Alice M. Dickey, 'yS 



HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 

It is not what the best men do, but what they are, that con- 
stitutes their truest benefaction to their fellowmen. It is the 
lives like the stars, which simply pour down on us the calm light 
of their bright and faithful being up to which we look, and out of 
which we gather the deepest calm and courage. 

Phillips Brooks 

About ninety years ago, a young man by the 
name of Lucian Willard Caryl came to Boston 
to study medicine. He was a country boy, a 
native of Barnard, Vermont, and a graduate of 
Union College, New York. At the close of his 
medical course, he served for a year as house phy- 
sician at the Massachusetts General Hospital. 
During this time, he met, and soon after mar- 
ried, Miss Frances Amelia Whitney, one of five 
daughters living with their parents in a dignified 
old house on Myrtle Street. 

After their marriage, Lucian Caryl and his 
wife went to Buffalo, New York, where he prac- 
ticed medicine, spending many of his spare hours 
in the study of mathematics and astronomy, in 
both of which he was deeply interested and un- 
usually proficient. Here in Buffalo, on the 2 1st 
of November, 1834, a little daughter was born, 
who was named Harriet Elizabeth. But long 
before the little girl could begin to share with 
him the pursuits in which she, herself, later 
showed such marl^e4 ability — indeed, even be- 

3 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

fore she was old enough to remember him — the 
young father died; then the stricken young wife 
broke up the home so recently established and 
with her little daughter went to Ohio, where they 
remained for two years, living with relatives. 

When Harriet was between four and five 
years of age, she came with her mother to Bos- 
ton, to make her home with the grandparents on 
Myrtle Street, and found herself an only child in a 
family of rather serious grown-up people. Hers 
was a very delicate childhood, so delicate that 
her mother was at times seriously apprehensive 
as to her future. She was, however, sent to a 
primary school on Revere Street, where she con- 
ducted herself in a very docile manner until an 
act of injustice on the part of her teacher re- 
sulted In the quiet but deliberate revolt of the 
little girl. She was naturally very shy, and on 
this occasion she did not take her mother Into 
her confidence, deciding to play truant on her 
own responsibility. For a part of one weary but 
independent day she sat about upon doorsteps 
in the neighborhood (judiciously avoiding those 
belonging to her grandfather's house) until an 
observant neighbor reported the child's nomadic 
course to the family at home. Then Harriet 
made a clean breast of the whole matter to her 
mother, found the necessary understanding and 
sympathy, and was reinstated in school. Every 
pupil of Miss Caryl can testify that this early 
love of justice bore rich fruit In later years, and 

4 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

none who studied under her wise guidance can 
fail to recall her intense personal sympathy with 
Samuel Adams and other sticklers for justice of 
his strenuous times. 

From the primary school the child went to 
the Bowdoin Grammar School, where, although 
still seriously hampered by ill health, she be- 
came warmly interested in her studies. In addi- 
tion to the regulation grammar-school curricu- 
lum of the time, which consisted of "the three 
R's" and geography, she studied a little Latin, 
and algebra, and history. 

She was graduated from the Bowdoin School 
at the age of sixteen, and then entered a school 
of design, but when it became known that a high 
school, or "Normal School," as it was cautiously 
called at first, was to be opened for Boston girls, 
her mother at once decided to send her to this 
new school. This was a bold step for a mother of 
that day to take, and the opening of that school 
was a memorable occasion In the history of pub- 
lic education for women. To quote from the 
"History of the Girls' High School," written by 
Miss Lucy R. Woods: "In 1825, the good city 
of Boston allowed Its girls to attend the public 
schools but six months in the year, from April to 
October. The Rev. John Plerpont proposed the 
establishment of a * public school for the instruc- 
tion of girls In the higher departments of science 
and literature." The committee reported favor- 
ably, the city appropriated two thousand dollars, 

S 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

and in January, 1826, the school was established, 
but instead of ninety candidates, the largest 
number that had ever presented themselves for 
admission to the Boys' High School, nearly 
three hundred girls appeared at the appointed 
place, on Washington's Birthday, 1826. One 
hundred and thirty were admitted. This experi- 
ment was short-lived. In vain the committee 
raised the standard of requirements for admis- 
sion, and both raised and limited the age of 
admission. The numbers increased. Mayor 
Quincy was alarmed. *No city could stand the 
expense,' he declared. In 1828 it was discon- 
tinued. To many friends of education this was 
a great blow. So great was the influence of 
Boston in educational matters, that the discon- 
tinuance of this school no doubt retarded the 
whole movement in the country for the higher 
education of girls at municipal expense. Nearly 
a quarter of a century passed. In 1852 Boston's 
population numbered one hundred and thirty 
thousand, and the first superintendent of schools 
made known the need of a place where young 
women might be trained as teachers for the 
primary and grammar schools, and in Septem- 
ber the Normal School began its career." 

In regard to Miss Caryl's early days in this 
school, one of her pupils, Miss Lilias Page, 
writes: 

"Harriet Caryl entered the Normal School at 
its opening and she and her classmates well un- 

6 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

derstood that upon what they did, depended the 
future education of the girls of Boston; they 
began this new experiment in education with a 
spirit of adventure and a sense of responsibiHty, 
and they were determined not to fail. 

"It was with this stimulus of adventure and 
responsibility that Harriet Caryl walked down 
Joy Street every morning, passed the old Han- 
cock House, then standing on Beacon Street 
near the State House, crossed the Common, then 
surrounded by dignified residences, and entered 
the Mason Street School. We now know the 
building as the School Committee building, but 
in those days there was no steep, forbidding 
staircase, towering above you as you opened the 
front door, but a wide, welcoming corridor lead- 
ing back to windows that overlooked an open 
bricked court. At the end of the corridor, you 
turned to the left to rooms occupied in part by 
the Boston Public Library, while to the right 
were the rooms of the old Natural History Build- 
ing, later to be used by the school. Both were 
buildings of delightful irregularity, containing 
rooms of curious shapes and sizes, reached by 
unexpected passages. The past seemed to per- 
meate every corner of this clustered building; 
and a secluded, leisurely quiet hung over the 
bricked open court, walled in by the Boston 
Theatre and other high buildings, where the 
girls strolled about during recess, eating lunches 
brought from home in folding tin lunch boxes. 

"Under Loring Lothrop as master and with 
Margaret Badger and Frances Bacon as class- 
mates, Harriet Caryl spent three years as a 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

pupil in the school. These were the days of 
Committee men like Theodore Parker, who often 
would take a class in Latin or mathematics for 
the pleasure of teaching. They were the days of 
the Fugitive Slave Law and of the eloquence of 
Daniel Webster; the days of the work of Horace 
Mann, who planned the educational system not 
only for Massachusetts, but also for the great 
republic of Argentina, where his system is fol- 
lowed to this day; they were the days when 
European liberals, like Carl Schurz, came to the 
United States from Austria, Italy, and Germany, 
after the rising for liberty In those countries, in 
1848, had been crushed; liberals who became 
valuable citizens of our country, and later, im- 
portant aids in our war of 1861 for preserving 
the Union. We can well imagine the quick re- 
sponse of Harriet Caryl's young nature to all 
these stirring currents of the time." 

Miss Caryl's three years as a student in this 
school were inexpressibly happy years. She 
loved her studies; she was modestly conscious of 
the good opinion of her teachers ; and best of all 
she enjoyed her schoolmates with genuine girlish 
enthusiasm, losing with them the shyness and 
reserve which had characterized her relations 
with other people to a somewhat unusual degree. 
It was in these happy, ardent, fruitful years 
that she "found herself." To quote from Mrs. 
Ellen F. Brown, one of her classmates: 

"Hattie Caryl! What tender memories this 
name recalls to one who was her classmate and 

8 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

friend in the dear old days of the Girls' High 
School. Without doubt there was no one of the 
class so loved and respected by the committee, 
teachers, and pupils as was Miss Caryl. Quiet 
and unassuming in her ways, a close student, a 
genial companion, always a true friend, and 
especially so in time of need, she won all our 
hearts. Were a fellow classmate or a pupil in 
another grade in trouble, who so quick to find it 
out as Hattie, and to show her kindness and 
sympathy as she only could to the sorrowing 
one.'* In studies her rank in the class was among 
the highest; as a faithful earnest student she 
was excelled by none. Her clear mind, aided by 
close application, enabled her to grasp the intrica- 
cies of mathematics and astronomy and appre- 
ciate the salient points of history and English 
literature with equal facility. She was a born 
teacher, and whatever she knew herself she could 
always impart distinctly to others in the class 
recitations. With all her good qualities of mind 
and heart there was no egotism, no assumption 
of superiority over others not so highly gifted: 
consequently no one was jealous. I never heard 
an ill-natured remark concerning her in the 
three years of our school life." 

Another fellow student, Miss Laura Wildes, 
writes: 

"Hattie Caryl was the nicest girl one could 
desire in any class. I think she changed in 
looks as little as one could in the passing years. 
Her face was always sweet, and her manner 
cordial and friendly. I may say in school-girl 

9 



Harriet Ktizabeth Caryl 

fashion, *She was just as nice as she could 
e. 

It was no surprise to those who knew her 
that upon graduation, in 1855, at the age of 
twenty-one, she was asked to become a teacher 
in the school, an invitation which she accepted 
with hesitation and joy. During her early 
years of teaching Miss Caryl was in very deli- 
cate health. The friends who watched her with 
anxious interest could hardly have believed that 
she had long years of usefulness before her. In 
i860 her condition was so critical that she was 
obliged to leave school and go to the West. 
With somewhat improved health she returned to 
her work after several months of absence, but it 
was not until about seven years later, when she 
had recovered from a long siege of typhoid fever 
which seemed to have purged her entire system, 
that she began to be a thoroughly healthy 
woman. The good health of her later years was 
one source of her power and success. 

During her forty-eight years of service, Miss 
Caryl taught at one time or another nearly all 
the subjects found in the curriculum, some of 
them rather unwillingly, to meet the exigencies 
which are sure to arise in a high-school pro- 
gramme. The subjects she delighted to teach were 
mathematics, physics, history, and astronomy. 

One of her pupils writes : 

"Her classes from the beginning were devoted 
to her, and we know how she looked to them in 

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Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

her early years of teaching from the delightful 
little picture we have of her earnest young face. 
Coming from her grandfather's home with its 
daily duties for each member of the household, 
and from her church home in old Grace Church, 
then on Temple Street, Harriet Caryl brought to 
the school, all unconscious of it as she was, the 
customs and traditions of a gentlewoman, and 
the ideals of a rare Christian character. These 
traditions and these ideals she gradually, though 
unconsciously, impressed upon the school during 
her fifty years of service." 

Another pupil writes of her teaching: 

"I was in Miss Caryl's class in astronomy 
first, afterwards in physics. My recollection of 
her lessons is that the teaching was clear and 
thorough. She planted our feet firmly on the 
path, so that we never took a step forward till 
the preceding step was sure. Then she inspired 
us to work hard. A shirk had no standing with 
her. If her kindly nature could feel scorn, it 
was a shirk or a trifler who could call it out. 
The subject of astronomy was one which to an 
imaginative nature awoke emotion, wonder, dim 
gropings after unattainable heights of specula- 
tion and fancy. But no such flights were en- 
couraged. Kingsley, in one of his novels says, 
*Your ass who can't do his sums always has a 
taste for the infinite.' Miss Caryl's teaching 
awakened awe, reverence, and thirst for knowl- 
edge; but she kept us strictly at work on prob- 
lems that led us by sure, safe paths to solid 
attainment. I do not remember that we ever 

II 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

were examined. She did not pull us up, shiver- 
ing, by the roots to find out how little we knew. 
We studied because we wished to learn, or, if 
that was not the motive, then we studied be- 
cause we did not wish Miss Caryl to despise us." 

Another side of Miss Caryl's teaching is 
shown by the following letter from Miss Ada 
Hersey: 

"In the following incident I wish I could give 
Miss Caryl's own words, but can only give the 
substance. 

"It was in the physics class — • after a rather 
long and very careful explanation. Miss Caryl 
asked if we all understood, because, as she said 
after a pause, it was very important that we 
should before she went further. Then one very 
sweet girl, with whom physics was not a strong 
point, raised her hand and said, *I think I 
understand, but there is one question I should 
like to ask.' Miss Caryl was all interest — the 
question was asked — it showed that the girl 
had not understood the first principle. In 
breathless silence we all looked at Miss Caryl — 
her face fell for just an instant; then, with that 
little side turn of the head, and the sweetest 
expression she said, 'Now that you have asked 
that question, I think I had better begin at the 
beginning.' And she went through the whole 
thing again with just as much patience and even 
more care. And at the end the girl said she 
understood. 

"This seems like nothing in the telling, but 
somehow the whole atmosphere of that class- 

12 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

room was so sympathetic with Miss Caryl and 
with the pupil, and so thoroughly alive to the 
subject, that it has remained with me as an ideal 
of perfect teaching as well as an index of Miss 
Caryl's beautiful spirit." 

Another letter from a pupil, Miss Anna F. 
Hewins, is appreciative of Miss Caryl's teaching 
of English and shows her abiding sense of the 
influence of Dr. Eliot in the school : 

"To-day when it is common for High School 
classes to balk at reading Milton's 'Shorter 
Poems,' I like to remember the joy we took in 
Miss Caryl's teaching of 'Comus' and 'Lycidas' 
one spring forty years ago. Somehow from that 
class came a joy that has remained with me all 
these years, and many times when the Spring 
has come around, Milton's lines have sounded 
in my ears, as part of the season. I like to re- 
member now that not many years ago I told 
Miss Caryl what that class had meant in my life. 

"I have also grateful recollections of her class 
in American History, in my advanced year, 
1878-79. The course covered the critical years 
after the Revolution, the Convention of 1787, 
and the foundation of the Government under 
the Constitution. The things she taught stayed 
in one's mind. As I look back upon it now, after 
so many years, I realize anew what an admirable 
piece of work her teaching of that class was, how 
vital and how clear. 

"But better even than her teaching was her 
personality, — that transparent goodness that 

13 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

did not preach, but suggested rather, and 
sometimes brought about results long years 
after. 

"I have a note from her, written twenty 
years ago, after Dr. Eliot's death, and her appre- 
ciation of him might apply to what we are feel- 
ing about her now. She says, * We can say what 
he said of Miss Badger, the school has met with 
a great loss, but it has inherited a precious mem- 
ory. How glad I am for you and for all the girls 
who were his pupils! And somehow, I do not 
know how, I do believe his influence over the 
school is to be a permanent blessing.' 

"A school is rich indeed that has as posses- 
sions the memory of Dr. Eliot's four years, and 
Miss Caryl's fifty years of service." 

In her teaching of American history, as has 
already been suggested. Miss Caryl's deep sense 
of justice and her strong patriotism made her 
classes excellent training in citizenship, long 
before such training became part of the curricu- 
lum of the public schools, and its necessity had 
been proved by the great war and the immigra- 
tion problem. Miss Caryl's lessons were not 
indiscriminate praise of our men of the Revolu- 
tion. Her keen mind saw through the pompous 
pretensions of Hancock, and her sense of fair 
play gave all honor to the part which true- 
hearted Englishmen played in England, while 
the armies of their king fought us here. 

Hundreds of women have gone from Miss 
Caryl's classes to take their share in our coun- 

14 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

try's struggle for truth and justice; and who 
shall say how many had their feet turned into 
loyal ways in the quiet classroom of this Boston 
teacher ? 

Miss Fanny E. Coe, in the following letter, 
gives us a vivid picture of one of Miss Caryl's 
classes in history in the eighties: 

"It was the last week of school. Examina- 
tions were past; graduation was close at hand. 
Miss Caryl was straining every nerve to finish 
her course in the American Revolution, and to- 
day she was late to class. Some complication 
had arisen in the school programme, intricate as 
the calculus, that Miss Caryl alone could adjust. 
So we waited — a section of the advanced 
class, — in an order less perfect than usual. It 
was warm June, and our release from classrooms 
was at hand. No wonder we ventured upon a 
whispering recess. 

"Miss Caryl entered with her cheery greeting 
and gay word of apology. It had been the pro- 
gramme. Then she opened one of several big 
volumes filled with paper markers, and began to 
read rapidly. This was to be an easy hour we 
saw. Ten per cent of keen attention in the event 
of a sudden question upon the subject-matter 
would suffice. Consequently, eyes were on the 
tossing boughs of the maples on West Newton 
Street, and minds were busy with the ruffles of 
graduation gowns. Washington and his men 
making camp at Valley Forge were remote, 
shadowy figures, familiar since childhood. Had 
not the grammar school * scooped' the dramatic 

15 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

thrill of the situation long ago? Fiske's eloquent 
words fell upon indifferent ears. 

"Suddenly there was a pause in the steady 
voice of the reader — it broke — made an 
effort to continue, and failed. Miss Caryl 
passed the book to the nearest girl, saying, 
* Please read. I can't go on.' And as the aston- 
ished pupil stumbled to her feet, Miss Caryl sat 
there with bent head, winking to keep back the 
tears and biting her lips in an effort for self- 
control. Dear Miss Caryl, how we loved her! 
How perfect the attention of the class from the 
moment its leader had faltered! 

"But what was it all about? thought the girl, 
who was I. What had made Miss Caryl cry? 
Any disorder of the class? No. Some grief 
before she came to the lesson? Her cheery 
greeting smile refuted that theory. Could it by 
chance have been the reading? The scarcely 
heeded words of a moment ago were recalled: 
*As the poor soldiers marched on the 17th of 
December to their winter quarters, their route 
could be traced on the snow by the blood that 
oozed from bare, frost-bitten feet.' 

"The girl read on, 'In the crowded hospitals, 
which were for the most part mere log-huts or 
frail wigwams woven of twisted boughs, men 
sometimes died for want of straw to put be- 
tween themselves and the frozen ground on 
which they lay.' 

"A dull old story this? Ah, no. Poignantly 
present, eternally alive, were these heroes of old 
to Miss Caryl's wonderful mind. Even as she 
mothered us girls, so, at that moment, she had 

16 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

drawn a whole army under the wings of her 
sympathy. Those of us who dimly sensed the 
true cause for those tears, could only catch our 
breaths with awe, and pray that our slow hearts 
and unquickened imaginations might some day 
be awakened. The history lesson was superb 
that Miss Caryl taught that day." 

The school grew rapidly, and the vital part 
taken by Miss Caryl in its growth is referred to 
by Miss Lilias Page in the following letter; 

"Throughout the fifty years of Miss Caryl's 
service, the school, like all vital things, was con- 
stantly growing. Having been established to 
prepare girls to be teachers as well as to give 
them a higher education, the number of pupils 
increased so much as the years went on, that in 
1872, the normal, or teacher-training part of the 
school was separated from that of the High 
School, and the Normal School was established 
by itself. In 1878 when the number of pupils 
had again largely increased, the girls who were 
preparing for college were taken away and made 
into a separate school called the Girls' Latin 
School. Later, after the number of pupils in the 
school had reached over 2000, and more than 
half were following vocational work in the Com- 
mercial courses, it was proposed to take away 
the girls following Commercial courses and make 
of them a separate school. This has not been 
done, but may take place in the future. In all 
this growth, through half a century of change, 
Miss Caryl was the constant element; classes, 

17 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

teachers and masters came and went, but she 
remained. She had helped create the school 
in its infancy, she had cherished and fostered its 
long growth, and she helped to direct the mani- 
fold activities of its maturity. She had a unique 
position, her life was the one life which was 
identified with the life of the school from its 
beginning — and her life was not only identified 
with that of the school, it was also a creator of 
its strength and an inspirer of its spirit. Be- 
loved by its teachers and pupils, her power and 
insight grew, as the school grew. She under- 
stood it and loved it. 

"Like other great work, Miss Caryl's work 
was done unconsciously. It was done because 
Miss Caryl was serving a great ideal and strove 
with all her strength toward it, leaving no room 
for thought of self. In this high service she 
builded better than she knew. 

"Miss Caryl's unconsciousness of self was 
never more apparent than when a new head 
master was coming to the school. Four times, 
after her earlier years of teaching, the head 
master of the school was changed. Before a new 
master was appointed, there were weeks, and 
sometimes months, when the school was in Miss 
Caryl's hands. Her administration was so able, 
her knowledge of the school needs so complete 
and the cooperation of pupils and teachers with 
her so enthusiastic, that again and again, the 
pupils asked, why can we not go on as we are, 
why do we need a strange man as master, who 
knows neither us nor the school.'* Then Miss 
Caryl's opposition to all such questioning came 

i8 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

out firm and unhesitating. She presented every 
possible advantage that the new master could 
bring, always with the good of the school to the 
fore, and would listen to no fears or doubts. 

"When the new master came, he found the 
whole of the little school kingdom in his hands 
and Miss Caryl quietly absorbed in teaching 
her special branches as if she had never held the 
reins of government. Yet she was so ready to 
aid him in his untrodden paths, with quick un- 
derstanding of his needs and with the wisdom of 
her experience combined with the charm of her 
ineradicable humility, that it is no wonder that 
each new master immediately made her his 
prime minister. 

"That a woman could relinquish supreme 
power, once, with graciousness, would have been 
a triumph, but that she could do so four times, 
and do so even when it seemed doubtful to some 
minds whether the change would turn out well 
for the school, shows a consecration to an ideal 
so high, that self-consideration falls away un- 
heeded and leaves the nature free to see straight 
and to walk true." 

As an administrator, her executive ability 
very early made itself felt, and increasingly with 
the years. When she resigned in 1903, she had 
held the unique position, for a woman, of assist- 
ant principal for several years. In recognition 
of her administrative powers, Mr. Tetlow, in a 
paper written for the number of the "Distaff," 
dedicated to Miss Caryl, said: 

19 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

"When, in the summer of 1885, I was in- 
formed in advance of the formal vote of the 
School Board, that I was to be nominated to 
the head mastership of the Girls' High School, 
one of the first questions I asked myself was, 
*How will my appointment be received by the 
teachers who are to be my associates in that 
school ? ' 

"At that time I knew Miss Caryl, the assist- 
ant, but slightly, and thought of her chiefly as a 
teacher long identified with the school, inti- 
mately acquainted with its traditions, and 
widely known for executive efficiency. With 
some doubt as to the possible attitude towards 
me of a teacher who might easily look with mis- 
giving, if not with positive suspicion, on a new 
and untried leader, I called on Miss Caryl in her 
home. At the end of a conversation of twenty 
minutes, I had formed an entirely new and un- 
expected conception of her character and per- 
sonality. I had found a sympathetic friend. 
The oppressive sense of responsibility which had 
weighed upon me before the interview began, 
had become a feeling of buoyant hopefulness. 
From that time forward I knew that I was to 
have the confidence and support of a wise, sin- 
cere, frank, and loyal helper. 

" The relation then established has never 
changed. I meet Miss Caryl now, only at long 
intervals; but, though our intercourse has been 
interrupted, our mutual trust has remained un- 
broken. It could not be otherwise, for it was 
founded on moral foundations that were solid 
and abiding. 

20 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

"There are teachers who, through the silent, 
subtle, unconscious influence of their daily lives 
in the classroom, sweeten and ennoble the hearts 
and minds of their pupils. To this class, small 
in number, but rich in beneficence. Miss Caryl 
belongs. Throughout a long and laborious life, 
her daily work has been done in a spirit of cheer- 
ful self-sacrifice, of unflinching fidelity to duty, of 
sweet serenity of temper, of unquestioning loyalty 
to noble ideals, of transparent, yet kindly frank- 
ness of speech, of uncompromising truthfulness, 
of unaffected simplicity of aim, and of reverent 
humility. 

"These noble qualities of mind and heart ap- 
peal as directly and as strongly to young people as 
to adults. To these qualities young people are 
more responsive than adults. Most persons ac- 
quire these qualities, if at all, through painful 
effort; but to Miss Caryl they were as natural 
as breathing." 

Mr. Tetlow struck the keynote of Miss 
Caryl's character as a teacher in this article. 
Invaluable as her teaching and indispensable as 
her executive service were in the development 
of the school, her sympathy and wise counsel 
meant even more in its life. Her interest in her 
pupils continued even after they had left school, 
and in many instances ripened into lasting 
friendship, a friendship ready to express itself in 
material help, or spiritual, as the occasion de- 
manded, a friendship unwavering, generous, 
wise, and so gracious and loving in its quality 

21 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

that those who have experienced it must always 
count it as one of the rarest gifts Hfe has be- 
stowed upon them. 

But now let us turn from our study of Miss 
Caryl as a teacher to her life out of school, her 
tastes, her occupations in leisure hours, the life 
from which she drew the sweet ennobling influ- 
ence which she brought to her daily work. To 
those who were admitted to her friendship and 
saw her in her home, that home in itself seemed 
most fitting as a background for the simple 
dignity and loveliness of her character. We will 
allow Mrs. William B. Stevens (Miss Elizabeth 
Light), one of those who knew her in this home, 
to describe it: 

"More than sixty years ago when old Myrtle 
Street bore its old-time aspect, when there were 
only two or three inconspicuous shops in it, and 
the three or four storied old-fashioned houses 
were occupied only by private families. Miss 
Caryl was living with her mother and aunt in 
the same old house so many of us remember. 
Miss Caryl as a school girl and also through the 
years she taught at the high school used daily to 
wend her way from the old house and turn up 
Joy Street to cross the Common to the old 
Mason Street building. We could see her from 
my grandfather's house (my home), and see also 
Miss Whitney, 'Aunt Katie,' who used to turn 
down the street passing our dining-room win- 
dow, on her way to the high school in Charles- 
town, where she taught so many years. She 

22 




FRANCES WHITNEY CARYL 

MOTHER OF HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

wore the close bonnet which covered her ears, 
with strings that tied under her chin, and a 
green veil, through which her features and 
bright eyes but faintly showed, but it was char- 
acter and dignity and intellect, not simply a 
figure, that passed. Miss Caryl's dress has 
faded away in the picture. It is just her earnest 
eyes and sweet intense expression which stand 
out, in memory. 

"I entered the high school at fifteen, and I 
was in none of Miss Caryl's classes until my 
senior year, but from that time for many years 
I knew her intimately. I do not remember just 
when I first went to her home and met her 
mother and aunt. It seems as if I had always 
known them familiarly against the background 
of the old back parlor, with its old-time wood- 
work in high mantel, the window and door 
frames, the simple hand-carved ornament in the 
white painted wood, the old door handles, and 
other finishings we call antique now, but which 
we used to call (deprecatingly) old fashioned. 
There were the mahogany-framed, hair-cloth, 
carved furniture, the high, well-filled book case 
and books around everywhere, all the evidence 
of literary work and enjoyment, the centre table 
with its books, periodicals, and work basket, 
and always dear dainty Mrs. Caryl, in her own 
chair, with her snowy headdress over dark, not 
white hair, and her plain black dress with its 
white folded front. She was full of interest in all 
the activities of sister and daughter and friends, 
full of sweetness, sympathy and responsiveness, 
but quiet and gentle, and cared for with a 

23 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

cherishing care. Her active days were over, but 
the beautiful indications of them were in her 
changing, speaking face. 

" *Aunt Katie' was in her prime, and was a 
mine of wisdom, experience and personal recol- 
lections. Harriet was 'child' to them both, and 
yet intellectually, companion. 

"These three gentlewomen were devoted to 
their church, to their 'duties,' and keenly alive 
to all the spiritual and intellectual interests of 
the day. You may not know, for it was too 
much before your time, but the period when I best 
remember them all was a sort of revolutionary 
period in the religious, the intellectual, and the 
educational history of New England as a whole, 
and Boston notably. And they were abreast of 
the times! I did not know then, how valuable 
and formative to a young girl and young woman 
the atmosphere and the influence of this house- 
hold were, and were to be. I do know now, 
what the hours spent from time to time in that 
atmosphere and open to that influence, con- 
tributed to my life." 

Whatever influences set Miss Caryl's feet in 
the path of teaching, that path led her deeper 
and deeper into a life of service and sacrifice — 
service gladly performed — sacrifice cheerfully 
borne. But this prevailing spirit of service and 
sacrifice could not find all the opportunities it 
craved, even in the schoolroom. In her early 
womanhood, she became a member of Em- 
manuel Church then under the inspiring teach- 

24 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

ing of Dr. Huntington, and there she often 
listened to the earnest appeals of Bishop 
Whipple, called the Apostle to the Indians. In 
1864 she was one of a little group of girls and 
women in Emmanuel Church, roused by Bishop 
Whipple's stirring words, who promised to raise 
annually the few hundred dollars necessary for 
the education of a native catechist, Paul 
Mazakuto, the first native Indian deacon or- 
dained among the Sioux. This little company 
called itself "the Dakota League." As years 
went on, its members were scattered in various 
parishes, but they continued their interest in 
Indian missions, till, in 1872, the Dakota League 
became a diocesan society, and later the nucleus 
of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Mis- 
sions in Massachusetts, at which time the care 
of the work for colored people was added to its 
responsibility. 

As a missionary worker Miss Caryl showed 
the same spirit of consecration and faithfulness 
as in her school. She was treasurer of her com- 
mittee, and one of her duties was to attend the 
monthly meeting of the Woman's Auxiliary in 
the chapel of St. Paul's Church. She had no 
stirring appeal to make. Her task was the 
exceedingly dull recital of the list of boxes con- 
tributed by the different parishes with their 
value in money. But she knew that some dele- 
gate, perhaps several delegates from distant 
parishes, who had worked hard, and denied 

25 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

themselves to send money and well-filled boxes 
to the Indians were listening eagerly to her 
report to hear their special boxes mentioned, and 
she never failed them. Her conscientious care 
for small details, however, was no more char- 
acteristic than her capacity to grasp large issues, 
and be ready for improved methods. 

The following are some of the resolutions 
voted by the Auxiliary, at the time of her 
death : 

"In the passing of Miss Caryl, the church and 
the city have lost a rare woman, for probably no 
other woman of the Commonwealth has had the 
wide influence over, and deep affection of, such 
a multitude of other women and girls. It was 
an influence so gracious and yet so strong that 
to-day after fifteen years of retirement from her 
position in the Girls' High School, thousands of 
those whose lives have been touched by her rise 
up to praise and call her blessed. 

"To the church she gave devoted and loyal 
service. One of the original members of the 
Dakota League and its vice-president, she served 
continuously for forty-three years. She was a 
faithful and wise counsellor. Many of us, re- 
membering her gentle, firm and courteous meth- 
ods — those of a true gentlewoman — thank God 
for her long life and great influence." 

During the rectorship of Phillips Brooks, Miss 
Caryl was a member of Trinity Church. There 
she found abundant inspiration for her chosen 

26 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

profession, — a profession which when followed 
by a Christian woman is second only to that of a 
clergyman in moral and spiritual influence. How 
this influence went out from Miss Caryl, many 
a girl has borne testimony. 

But while school work, growing more exacting 
every year, made up most of Miss Caryl's life, 
still, there were vacations. Then the natural 
buoyancy and capacity for enjoyment in Miss 
Caryl's nature came to the front, and she 
planned and executed "outings" on a large 
scale, with the zest of a child oflt on a holiday. 
She went abroad for the first time with her aunt. 
Miss Kate Whitney. It was in the summer of 
1870. Landing in Liverpool, they planned to 
take a leisurely trip across England and then 
visit Paris; but while they had been crossing the 
Atlantic, war had been declared between France 
and Germany. "Then," said Miss Whitney, 
when she learned this fact, "we will go immedi- 
ately to Paris." Arrived there they were told 
that they must leave that day. But no martial 
law could daunt Miss Whitney. "We have come 
to see Paris," said she; and see it they did, in 
one day. Miss Whitney ordered a carriage and 
they drove to every sight that time allowed. 
In the evening they left for Italy, where they had 
a delightful trip, though the trunk which they 
had taken to Paris did not reach them again till 
a year later in Boston. Miss Caryl returned to 
America doubtless more or less bewildered by 

27 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

this first experience of foreign travel, but with 
an appetite for future expeditions that never 
left her. She crossed the ocean many times, 
bringing back delightful memories, new pleasure 
in her work, and trophies in the shape of pictures 
and other treasures to distribute among her 
friends and to adorn the old house with an un- 
wonted touch of foreign art. 

She travelled also in this country, visiting 
places of historic interest and natural beauty. 
As a member of the Appalachian Club, she 
showed herself a vigorous walker and climber, 
and in her trip to the Canadian Rockies when 
she was about seventy, she was a genial com- 
panion in a party of younger women. Miss 
Marian Hawes, one of the party on this expedi- 
tion, thus describes her: 

"For many years I had known Miss Caryl as 
the kindest and wisest of teachers, when in 1902, 
I had my first experience of her as a travelling 
companion. It was on a journey conducted by 
Professor Fay through the Canadian Rockies, a 
region in which he had already made important 
explorations and was to make still more. We 
were a party of sixteen members, of various 
ages and abilities, — some experienced moun- 
tain climbers, ambitious to follow new and dan- 
gerous trails, others less adventurous, content 
to enjoy the wonders of the mountains and 
glaciers from comfortable seats in observation 
cars and park carriages. If any one expected 
Miss Caryl with seventy years to her credit, to 

28 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

take her place with these sybarites of travel, he 
was much mistaken. 

"From the day when she joined her fellow 
travellers in the railway station, just at the 
appointed time, her face shining with pleasure 
at the thought of the summer's enjoyment, to 
the day when we bade her good-bye at the end 
of the journey, she was always the same alert, 
cheerful and spirited companion, claiming her 
full share of any hardships or self-denials in the 
most matter-of-fact and unobtrusive way. I 
have two photographs of her which show how 
gallantly she entered into the more strenuous 
pleasures of the Expedition. In one of them, 
she sits on horseback, ready for a long ride from 
the hotel to the Yoho Valley. This was before 
the automobile had made the journey one of 
ease and luxury. Another, photograph shows 
her, led by her friend Professor Fay, crossing a 
narrow footbridge over a fairly wide stream in 
the Yellowstone Park. 

"Miss Caryl had a very strict code of duty 
for herself, and a very broad and charitable 
toleration for the beliefs of others. Much as she 
appreciated the privilege of taking this journey, 
I believe she would have denied it to herself, if 
it had not been arranged to avoid travelling on 
Sunday. That day she loved to devote to wor- 
ship, rest, her books and her friends. Once, 
however. In the Yellowstone Park, we were com- 
pelled to travel all of one Sunday, and Miss 
Caryl's cheerful acquiescence in the necessary 
arrangement showed her as she always was, 
thoroughly reasonable and unselfish. 

29 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

"Her Interest in others and her noble and 
winning personality gained friends for her on 
this journey, as they did everywhere. I re- 
member one of the younger members of the 
party who had never met Miss Caryl before 
became as devoted to her as the girls in her 
classes used to be in the early days of her 
teaching. 

"It was beautiful to see the charm of the 
spirit victorious over time, and we love to think 
of its two-fold existence — in the hearts of those 
who loved her and in the full free joy of the 
endless life." 

During her forty-eight years of service many 
changes took place in the staif of teachers, and 
in the mastership of the school. Accompanied 
at first by her own classmates. Miss Bacon and 
Miss Badger, she found herself in late years 
surrounded by teachers who had been her own 
pupils. To all the new teachers she became the 
gracious hostess and friend, to the new masters 
the loyal assistant. Under Mr. Seavey she 
shared with her associates the rich advantage of 
his cordial friendship and leadership, but the 
four years of Dr. Eliot's mastership were years 
of the fullest pleasure. Dr. Eliot was known to 
her by name and reputation as a scholar and 
author, and as the President of Trinity College. 
When she heard of his appointment to the 
Girls' High School, Miss Caryl expected that he 
would shed glory on her beloved school, but 

30 



^• 




MARGARET A. BADGER 

TEACHER IN THE GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL 
FROM 1856 TO 1898 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

reign In dignified isolation above the stress of 
daily teaching and administration. When he 
came, she found him a teacher par excellence, 
whose joy it was to form new classes and to 
teach them himself whenever he found, as he 
always did, eager girls to fill them, — a man 
whose splendid motto was that of the Prince 
of Wales, "/cA dien" — magnanimous service, 
whose personal interest in the girls was as keen 
as Miss Caryl's, and whose administration of 
the school kept it always In the forefront of 
public Instruction In this country. When to all 
this service for her dear school Dr. Eliot added 
an appreciation of Miss Caryl's character and 
ability that led to a rare friendship, it is easy 
to understand that these four years of Dr. 
Eliot's mastership were the happiest and the 
most fruitful of Miss Caryl's long career. 

The following extracts from Dr. Eliot's letters 
to Miss Caryl will show how his Interest In the 
school continued long after he had resigned from 
his position as master: 

"Versailles, Oct. 6, 1880 

"I thank you for divining that I had thought 
of you, and of the school, when the new year 
began just a month ago, and that I would 
think of you on the first day of this month, the 
eighth anniversary of my meeting the school 
face to face. My wishes and prayers for you and 
your work are all the more earnest and the more 
frequent now that I have nothing else to give — • 

31 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

no labor, no Interposition, no official service of 
any kind. I rejoice in believing that the work 
does not need me, that the foundations on which 
it rests are secure, the earthly foundations, and 
deeper and stronger, the Everlasting Arms. 
Education may be secular, as they call it, 
through and through, but it is not the less in 
God's hands; men cannot take it out of them, 
and He who suffers children to come to Him will 
make the schools His ministers and care for 
them as no other can." 

On July 15, 1877, he wrote: 

"For all the kind words your letter contains 
you know I am grateful, and though I cannot 
think that I have helped you half as much as 
you say, I know I have wished to help you as 
much as I could. I trust you know that you 
have helped me, and that the deep regret I have 
had in laying down my work at the school has 
been soothed over and over again by your 
sympathies." 

During Miss Caryl's years of service she was 
several times offered positions of honor and use- 
fulness in other schools. One of these oppor- 
tunities was especially attractive to her as it 
was in the church school at Faribault, Minne- 
sota, founded by the well-beloved Bishop Whip- 
ple. But In each case she decided to remain in 
the school which had become so intimate a part 
of her life. And for this the school can never be 
too grateful. 

32 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

In the preparation of this sketch request was 
made to the graduates of the school to contrib- 
ute interesting reminiscences of their dear and 
honored teacher. The response was most grati- 
fying. From all over the country, and even 
from Europe, came words of gratitude and 
affection. There seemed to be a general recol- 
lection of unfailing kindness and strict justice, 
of serene calm, of "motherliness". — the word 
oftenest used. This motherliness was perhaps 
the truest characteristic of Miss Caryl — the 
motherliness which a girl comes to rely on, to 
take for granted, as is the way of a girl with her 
mother. 

Miss Lucy Woods, a pupil, a fellow teacher 
and lifelong friend of Miss Caryl, was also for 
some time during her girlhood a member of 
Miss Caryl's household. Miss Woods, in her 
"History of the Girls' High School," says of 
Miss Caryl: 

"Her pupils remember her teaching, — clear, 
persistent, thorough, patient, but when all 
lessons are forgotten they will remember her; 
the dullest could recognize the honesty, clear as 
the day, the simplicity and humility of mind, the 
utter devotion to duty, and the unfailing kind- 
ness that, like the sunshine of the Lord, falls on 
the evil and the good, on the just and on the 
unjust." 

The following responses from graduates will 
also throw a little more light on her character. 

33 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

The first comes from Mrs. Mabel Woodbury 
Douglass: 

"You asked me to send you some little inci- 
dent about Miss Caryl. I do not know that I 
can tell of anything that is of special interest. 
But perhaps I can say a little bit of my feel- 
ing for Miss Caryl. I have no gift of language, 
and it is hard for me to express myself. But 
I loved and revered Miss Caryl so deeply that 
I will try to say something as my tiny tribute 
to her. 

"I had but one year in the Girls' High School, 
— the Fourth, — but that year meant more to 
me than all my other years of school added to- 
gether. It was one of the big influences for good 
in my life. No other school is so dear to me. 
But I knew this only subconsciously when in 
the school. I had come from one of the mixed 
schools, and had been much more interested in 
having fun than in my studies. I was a very 
mischievous little girl at times. (I was n't really 
bad.) When I came to the Girls' High School, 
I found myself in an entirely new atmosphere. 
I can truly say I never had the slightest thought 
or desire to 'cut up,' while there. And I was 
perfectly happy. I think hundreds of girls must 
have had the same experience, and we all know 
that it was due to the school's wonderful teach- 
ers. I did not know how wonderful they were 
then; at least looking back it seems to me I did 
not. Some of them I respected and loved; 
some I admired; and one or two I adored in 
romantic school-girl fashion. 

34 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 



a 



'After leaving the school, I went back once 
or twice to its reunions. Then other things 
came. I married, went away for three years. 
It was after my return to Boston and I was 
a mother, that I began to have a longing for 
the old school. And I found that whenever 
I thought of the school, I thought of Miss 
Caryl. She seemed to stand for the school. I 
had not seen her for a number of years, but 
in my heart there was growing for her a deep 
love and reverence which will last for always. 
I must have felt it when in the school, but un- 
consciously. 

" Miss Caryl always seemed to me more like a 
great mother than a teacher. I can remember 
one thing: I always felt that I must be abso- 
lutely honest and sincere with her. She was 
that herself, and called forth the same attribute 
from her pupils. 

"Perhaps I might tell this. It is hardly 
enough to call it an incident. 

"While in the school, my mother died. When 
the spring vacation came, Miss Caryl sent for 
me to come to her in the reception room. She 
asked me a little about my family and learned 
that I was the eldest of four children. She then 
offered to come to my home during the vacation 
and help me with sewing or anything else needed. 
I was very immature, like a child of ten or 
twelve in many ways, but with the awful sorrow 
of eighteen. I had not thought of sewing or 
anything else, and her offer filled me with gratis 
tude, while at the same time it bewildered me. 
She rnvist h^ye s^?n how it was, for she 4id pp^ 

25 



Harriet Rlizabeth Caryl 

press the matter. But if she could have helped 
me, she would have given up her vacation time 
to doing it." 

Miss Ellen M. Folsom, a teacher in the school 
from 1872 to 1 88 1, contributes the following 
letter: 

"All I can do is to be one more voice among 
the many who feel first and foremost, in think- 
ing of her, the ennobling influence she had in our 
lives. She lived her own life on so high a plane 
that others must lift themselves up to it to meet 
her. Did you ever know any one swifter or 
more sure to give credit to good intentions, no 
matter how far performance lagged behind the 
aim? One of my mind pictures is the earnest- 
ness in her face as she said, *She meant it all 
right!' when the rest of us were shouting over 
the version of the Salic Law by which *No 
female or descendant of a female could inherit 
the throne of France.' — If I tried to tell you 
of the one time in the eight years — probably 
the one and only in all the years — when she 
was late at school, coming in after the devotional 
exercises, you would miss all the fun of it with- 
out that sparkle in Miss Badger's eyes as she 
told me *It was a kitten!' We had been, not 
quite anxious, but a little concerned at her non- 
appearance. I think oftenest of these two 
together — so equal in their aims and their, 
attainment — so different in the lesser attri- 
butes that make up personal charm — and both 
alike giving all their years of service to the 

36 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

School. I remember one discussion between 
them when each wanted the advanced class in 
Astronomy — it would have been a pure delight 
to either to have had a picked class in study- 
ing the wonders of the stars — and they were 
both so fine in the decision, which they had 
finally left to me. I don't remember my reasons, 
but I can never forget the perfection of their ac- 
ceptance of my decision, making it really their 



own." 



A letter from Miss Alice Hawes gives a per- 
sonal touch to a delightful memory of Miss 
Caryl's early years of teaching: 

"During my senior year (1867) Miss Caryl 
had a serious illness (typhoid fever, as I re- 
member). Of course all of us were deeply 
interested in her recovery, and longing for her 
return. One day one of the class came rushing 
in at recess, joy and excitement in her large 
black eyes. *0h, girls! I've seen Miss Caryl! 
She's the most adorable sight you can imagine. 
She never looked so dear!' 

"We all waited eagerly, and at the next recita- 
tion in she came, wearing a little close lace cap 
with pink ribbons, a charming piece of coquetry 
and simplicity combined. The fever had taken 
all her beautiful hair. For weeks she wore her 
caps, one with blue ribbons and one with 
pink. 

"Then one happy day the cap was laid aside, 
and behold, her hair was clustering in soft curls 
around her shapely head. We were never quite 

37 



Harriet RHzabeth Caryl 

sure whether the caps or the curls were the 
neater and completer, for nothing could be 
sweeter than Miss Caryl in either." 

Another pupil writes thus: 

"A young woman beset with perplexities and 
sore troubles went to Miss Caryl at school one 
afternoon and unburdened her soul. Miss Caryl 
took her in her arms as a mother might have 
done — bade her keep 'a single eye' — took her 
then and there to Miss Woods. That was the 
beginning of many happy years at Trinity in 
Miss Woods' Bible Class — and under Phillips 
Brooks' wonderful preaching. And that day 
was the beginning of a love tender and wise that 
enfolded the girl always through every day of 
her life till the girl grew into the shadow of 
middle life, and Miss Caryl passed to eternal 
youth." 

A letter from one of Miss Caryl's pupils In the 
early years of her teaching contains the following 
tribute: 

"I was a pupil of hers more than fifty years 
ago, and was also a member of the Dakota 
League. In the schoolroom when I became a 
teacher I tried to model my life according to her 
example, and I feel that what success I had there 
was due to her. 

"The enclosed sonnet I wrote for her and it 
was published in the ^Transcript' for June 12, 
1880. Then It was headed 'A Portrait,' as I 
knew how averse she was to praise." 

38 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

HARRIET E. CARYL 

Had I the singer's charm or poet's fire, 
Ah then should all the world, her world and mine, 
Resound with praises of her gifts divine. 
Removed from all that earth-born hearts desire. 
In look and act a saint who doth aspire 
Even to an eternal crown and shrine. 
The peaceful brow where years have left no sign 
Except the impress of a soul whose higher 
Calm this world can never give or take away. 
A gentle smile and tender dovelike eyes 
Reflect a mind that pain nor grief can sway, 
Yet in whose depths a shade of sadness lies. 
Lives such as hers bring nearer day by day 
The heaven man looks for in the distant skies. 

Mary A. Haley 

Miss Caryl's conscience was a source of 
"jestings which are not convenient" to her inti- 
mate friends. At one time, when Miss Caryl 
was planning a trip abroad, she said to a group 
of teachers, "What shall I bring you all?" One 
said, "A photograph"; another something else, 
and then Miss Woods said, "Oh, don't bring me 
anything, Hattie; but if you can find anywhere 
an india-rubber conscience, I wish you would 
buy one for yourself." 

Her peculiar respect for the city property, 
shown on a large scale in her most laborious and 
scrupulous care of all the books, numbering 
many thousands, loaned each year to the pupils 
and collected, counted, and packed away for 
the summer, was not only unimpaired, but 
assumed an acute form in dealing with small 

39 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

articles. She never, no matter how overbur- 
dened with work or pressed for time, took any- 
thing that belonged to the city for her own per- 
sonal use, or allowed any one else to do so. One 
of the teachers going home from school asked 
Miss Caryl for a string to tie a bundle she was 
carrying. Miss Caryl, after searching in a desk 
drawer, said she had no string. "But, Miss 
Caryl," said the teacher, "there is a whole 
ball." "That," said Miss Caryl with an air of 
finality, "is city string." The matter was 
finally compromised by the loan of a piece of 
the "city string" on condition that it should be 
returned next day without fail. At another 
time a pupil brought Miss Caryl a letter. As 
she handed it to her she said, "See, Miss Caryl, 
that stamp has not been cancelled." Miss 
Caryl immediately tore it in two, and when the 
girl remonstrated, said, "You know we must 
not cheat Uncle Sam." 

Rigorous discipline for herself, high standards 
firmly insisted on for her pupils, but greatest 
sympathy for those whose standards and actions 
fell short of her own — these characteristics 
made her firm as the granite of her New England 
hills, but tender as those same hills folded under 
a summer sky and clothed with verdure. 

The year 1902 was the fiftieth anniversary of 
the school, and as Miss Caryl was then about to 
resign, the Girls' High School Association de- 
cided to have a celebration of the anniversary 

40 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

which should take the form of a reception to 
Miss Caryl. 

To quote from the report written for the 
"Distaff" by Mrs. Mary D. Blodgett: 

"The evening opened with the reception to 
Miss Caryl, and for nearly an hour an endless 
procession of graduates, in double ranks, pressing 
closely upon one another, swept across the plat- 
form to greet Miss Caryl and the other teachers, 
who stood beyond. 

"All this greeting had to pause mid-way, 
because the time had come to begin the pro- 
gramme, and as a prelude to this there was gay 
music well rendered by a piano, violin and cor- 
net, which, with the brilliancy of the hall, first 
lighted this evening by the new electric lights, 
and the beauty of the palms, lavishly decorating 
the platform, gave the occasion a truly festive 
character. 

"Probably you have read in the newspapers a 
report of the programme, so I will not try to 
repeat it in detail, but I should like every one of 
you to have been in the audience when Miss 
Caryl rose to speak to us. We all sprang to our 
feet, and waved our handkerchiefs, so that she 
could only stand a moment in silence, and then 
she motioned to us to be seated, saying, ' If you 
do this, you will break me down.' But she did 
not break down. Not she! but went on to tell 
us clearly and simply about the first class of the 
Girls' High School." 

We have no record of Miss Caryl's address, 

41 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

but among her papers the following notes have 
been found of a talk which, though given a little 
later at a reunion to younger girls, deals with 
the same subject as her anniversary speech: 

"It is fine and inspiring to belong to a school 
that is fifty years old. To be sure the neighbor- 
ing school on Warren Avenue, the Boys' Latin, 
celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary almost twenty years ago. I hope the 
heart of every boy there thrills with pride and 
affection when he thinks of those two hundred 
and fifty years. Think what it must be to 
belong to a school which began its work and life, 
just when the foundations of Massachusetts 
were laid! There is no harm in that kind of 
pride. We cannot be quite one fifth as proud as 
they, but let us make all we can of our fifty 
years. Notice, I say 'us' and 'we,' for I was 
once a school-girl here, just as you are now — 
so forget to think of me as a teacher here, and 
think of me as just a school-girl with yourselves. 
That is a relation that can never be broken; you 
and I will always be members of the alumnae. 
I shall not be here to celebrate the one hun- 
dredth anniversary of the founding of the 
school, but many of you may be — and then, 
although you will be nice old ladies, and per- 
haps grandmothers, still, if you can attend any 
celebration that may be then, be sure and 
come and be sure and recall this fiftieth anniver- 
sary. 

"I don't think I can talk to you just as I 
talked tliat lovely evening in January, because 

42 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

I was talking to many an old girl then who knew 
what I was talking about, — and I doubt if there 
are ten of you who know where our first school 
building was. The school was in Mason Street, 
a narrow street running parallel with and be- 
tween Washington and Tremont Streets. It 
bends round into Tremont Street and comes out 
very nearly opposite the Subway Station at 
Boylston Street. The building is still standing 
and is used by the School Committee. It was 
not built for us; it had been used for the Adams 
Grammar School. 

"In October, 1852, our school was opened; in 
that year, also, the Boston Public Library was 
founded; it occupied the first floor of the Mason 
Street building and the school the two upper 
floors. The Library was small and young then; 
the public did not crowd it, and we girls, not 
having any school library, were allowed to do 
much of our studying in the reading-room of the 
library. Having the Library in the same building 
was a great boon to us, for we were allowed great 
freedom in the use of the books, and the libra- 
rian, Mr. Bedlington, was very kind in furnish- 
ing us with all the reference books we needed. 
I want to recognize, for the school's sake, the 
glad service he rendered it, all the time we occu- 
pied the same building. 

"The first class numbered only 105; as the 
course was to be but two years and we were to 
be fitted to be teachers in that time, the age of 
those first pupils, on entering, was in advance of 
the present age of admission; the girls were more 
mature than many of you are and more respon- 

43 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

sive to our teachers' efforts. Mr. Loring Lothrop 
was the first principal of the school. He suc- 
ceeded in making us feel that the success of the 
school, — nay, its very permanency — largely 
rested with us. If we showed ourselves appre- 
ciative of the opportunity afforded us — and 
worthy of it — then we should have done what 
in us lay to make the school a permanency. 
The man who could thus inspire a class was the 
one to start such an institution and the judgment 
of the Committee was justified. We were 
certainly an enthusiastic class; holidays were a 
dead loss, and the more time spent in the school- 
room, the happier we were. 

"The school became a sort of city pet, a show 
school. Strangers were often upon the platform. 
In those days, the Committee of the school were 
mostly professional men and they were constant 
visitors, so constant that they became person- 
ally known to teachers and pupils and often- 
times they would take charge of a recitation. A 
row of four or more visitors in a recitation was 
nothing unusual, and it did not disconcert a 
pupil. The company was all very pleasant and 
inspiring, but perhaps it was also a hindrance 
to the regular work. 

"This school was one of the first, if not the 
first in the city, to abolish the ranking system. 
We were taught to study just for the joy of it 
and for the use we hoped later to make of our 
knowledge. 

"Mr. Lothrop left us at the end of the fourth 
year, to open a private school. He had done a 
fine work for the school, had laid firm founda- 

44 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

tlons. Its curriculum has broadened since that 
time, sciences and modern foreign languages 
have been added to its list of studies, but the 
spirit with which Mr. Lothrop inspired those 
first classes was of the finest, and has never been 
lost, but has been renewed and invigorated by- 
many a teacher who has followed him; it is still 
a power in the school for the highest ideals of 
school life. May those who will speak at the 
Centennial celebration of the school have the 
same report to make." 

To return to Mrs. Blodgett's account of the fifti- 
eth anniversary: 

"When the formal addresses were over, the 
hour was late, but the moment of moments was 
yet to come. Some of us were looking anxiously 
at the clock, but Miss Jacobs, the president, 
knew how to hold us, and she charmingly intro- 
duced Miss Woods as the rose petal, which a 
brimming cup might hold without overflowing. 
Now it was Miss Woods who was to present our 
gift to Miss Caryl. This, you know, was a 
mahogany desk and a gift of money. In her own 
happiest manner. Miss Woods said that it was 
a familiar sight to all of us to see Miss Caryl 
before a desk, so we hoped that she might sit 
before a desk which we had given her for many 
years. 'Also,' she said, *we are going to place In 
her hands a sum of money, with which she Is 
to go on a journey. She has been in all our 
thoughts, and now we are going to give her 
something to keep us in her thoughts, for wher- 
ever she goes, whether in pursuit of eclipses or 

45 



Harriet KUzabeth Caryl 

climbing Alaskan mountains, we are going with 
her.' 

"Then she turned to show Miss Caryl the 
desk, which, skilfully concealed by palms and 
drapery, had been standing behind her all the 
evening. To prevent any necessity of a formal 
reply of thanks, the opening notes of the school 
ode were struck on the piano, and we all joined 
heartily in singing the words by Miss Dix, to 
the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne.' But Miss Caryl 
still would have the last word, and, after the 
ode, she came bravely forward, and said, 'I 
have been told that I am not to say anything, 
but I must speak to you all the same. I want 
to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and 
to tell you that your kindness to me this evening 
has completely overwhelmed me. I only wish I 
were more worthy of it.'" 

Miss S. Annie Shorey, a fellow teacher and 
warm friend of Miss Caryl for many years, 
writes of her coming to the June Party in 1903, 
just before she left the school for good. The 
June Party is given each year by the Eliot 
Memorial Association to the Seniors shortly be- 
fore their graduation. It Is given on a Saturday 
afternoon and is intended to provide an oppor- 
tunity for the girls who are so soon to leave the 
school, to meet their teachers and their class- 
mates in a more satisfying way than the 
crowded school hours at examination and 
graduation time permit. _ Miss Shorey writes as 
follows : 

46 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

"Mr. and Mrs. Tetlow and Miss Caryl were 
present at the June Party in 1903. A half-hour 
was spent in pleasant talk; then Miss Caryl, 
stepping to the front of the platform, called the 
assembly to order. In a few gracious words she 
extended to all a hearty welcome; we rejoiced 
to see her there, but those of us who were still 
engaged in the active work of the school, who 
felt that it was the last time when, entirely as one 
of themselves, she would so speak, could scarce 
keep back their tears. Soon, however, came the 
wiser thought, the school of the present, the 
past, and the future is but one, and in that 
school, as in our hearts. Miss Caryl's place can 
never change; her interest will be deep and abid- 
ing, and for many years to come the influence 
of her strong and gracious presence will be felt 
as a real power for good in our beloved school. 

"After the charming entertainment of music 
which had been provided for the afternoon, we 
all felt there was but one voice which this year 
could fittingly speak the words of counsel to the 
graduating class, and all her girls of the older 
generation as well, who were present, gave loving 
attention while Miss Caryl spoke as follows: 

" * It is my pleasant duty, as one of the host- 
esses of this occasion, to welcome those of you 
who are about to graduate from the school into 
the ranks of the Alumnae. Some of you will 
break at once, and some a year later, the special 
tie which binds you to the school as a pupil, and 
in spite of the near attraction of rest to tired 
brain, I believe it will be somewhat painful to 
break that tie; to those of you who feel thus, 

47 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

the open arms and warm welcome of the 
Alumnae will be something of a solace. But 
don't forget that you will be a living part of the 
school, that it will follow and watch your career, 
what you are, what you become, what you do, so 
far as it is able to do so, and let that thought be 
an inspiration to you to lead such a life that 
your membership in its growing ranks shall be a 
blessing. 

" *The larger Girls' High School (the pupils 
and the ex-pupils) needs just those faithful, 
earnest lives to keep and carry forward the high 
ideals of its first half-century. Notice that I 
said, "earnest and faithful lives.'* On our ex- 
hibition day in 1898 when the time came to give 
the diplomas, there was no member of the Com- 
mittee present to act, but happily our Dr. Eliot 
was present, and the girls were overjoyed to 
receive their diplomas from his hands. I cannot 
do better than to try to give to you the burden 
of those few words which he spoke to them at 
that time. He said, "Seek to find some place in 
life that needs you, and when you have found it, 
be happy and content to do your duty just there. 
Your corner in the world's broad field of work 
may be very tiny, very obscure, bringing you 
none of the world's honors, never mind that; 
don't be down-hearted about it; if you are in 
the spot that needs you, you are in the place 
that God made for just you, and to be faithful 
in the work which He assigns, must be to do the 
highest work that the world could hold for you; 
and if done in obedience to His will, no contribu- 
tion to life's work could be finer." ' 

48 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

"For a moment all was still, then the sweet 
notes of the flute broke the silence, giving the 
response that was in all our hearts. 

" I think I never realized more strongly than 
on this occasion the influence of these meetings 
in fostering a feeling of loyalty to the school. A 
young girl of the Senior class, one who had never 
seemed very warmly attached to her Alma 
Mater, came to me at the close of the afternoon, 
with tears in her eyes, 'Oh!' she said, 'I hope 
I can come back to school next year, but if I do 
not, I shall belong to this association some time. ' 

"May this love and loyalty grow stronger and 
deeper every year in the hearts of all our 
graduates." 

When Miss Caryl finally resigned her position 
in 1903, her friends hoped that there were to 
follow years of leisurely enjoyment and of free- 
dom from all care and anxiety. It was therefore 
a grief to all who knew her that there soon de- 
veloped very serious trouble with her eyes which 
finally resulted In almost total blindness. This 
she bore uncomplainingly, and with a courage 
and patience that added the crowning touch to 
a character already wonderfully complete. Still 
her spirit was unconquered. Her heart was still 
warm with love for the school, for her church, for 
missionary work, and for her friends. She had 
moved from the old house, now too large for her 
needs, to pleasant modern apartments where she 
still busied herself with some household duties, 

49 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

and where she had the constant and devoted 
care of a relative and a friend who made their 
home with her. Led by them, her face touched 
by a new, pathetic gentleness and dependence, 
she still attended her church, and her monthly 
missionary meetings, came to the girls' reunions, 
and often was an honored guest at the school. 
One of her pupils. Miss Etta Yerdon, who was 
much with her after she became blind and was 
most attached to her, writes : 

■ "Miss Caryl kept the knowledge of her ap- 
proaching blindness from her friends as long as 
possible. One of the last times I saw her she 
said, ^When it was certain that I was to be 
blind I resolved never to say a word of rebellion. 
I think I have kept that resolution.' Sometimes 
I had the privilege of accompanying Miss Caryl 
to church. When the psalms were read we 
stood close together and I read as distinctly as 
I could so that she could hear me, but generally 
when a verse ' was begun Miss Caryl finished 
it from memory. 

"Miss Caryl always treasured the books on 
the periods of history which she had taught, and 
I read to her first of all a ponderous life of Jeffer- 
son. Every week most of the time was given to 
this, and a space at the end for the * Spirit of 
Missions'; these two because Miss Caryl wished 
to hear them, also because she thought them 
good for her reader. Other friends read other 
things for her. She was most conscientious 
about sending periodicals of all kinds that she 

SO 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

liked to those who would enjoy them after she 
herself had read them. Always Miss Caryl was 
fresh and dainty about her dress and belongings, 
and she appreciated the wearing of a new gown, 
or bit of fine lace. It pleased her, too, when her 
friends wore an occasional bit of finery. She 
liked 'seeing it' with her fingers. 

"There was a bit of verse about 'the Heavenly 
City*; Miss Caryl loved it very much, and we 
used to say it together every time I went to 
read to her. I cannot remember the beginning, 
but we loved most of all these lines, 

" 'Bathed all in light with open gates of gold 
Perfect the city is in tower and street. 
And there a palace for each mortal waits 
Complete and perfect, at whose outer gates 
An angel stands, its occupant to greet.' " 

But at last came a time when the clear brain, 
the loving memory, the strong will gave way. 
Through three years of helplessness she lay like 
a little child, most tenderly cared for night and 
day by her cousin. Miss Katharine George, 
whom she had loved and taught as a child, by 
an intimate friend, Miss Emily Weeks, and two 
devoted nurses. She was in a mysterious state 
like that described in the words of the old hymn 
she had often sung in church: 

"And when these failing lips grow dumb 
And mind and memory flee, 
When thou shalt in thy kingdom come 
Then Lord remember me." 

SI 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

The end came at last on February 22, 1918, 
and on the afternoon of February 25 the funeral 
service was held. 

Once more, as after the death of Miss Emma 
Temple and of Miss Lucy Woods, the great doors 
of Trinity Church opened to receive a teacher, 
"found faithful unto death," who was to rest 
before the chancel and to have the words of the 
burial service repeated for her. And once more, 
as then, the old friends gathered, and flowers 
were heaped upon the bier and the chancel rail, 
and throngs of school girls filled the nave and 
transepts. In the case of Miss Temple and of 
Miss Woods, as both had been taken away in the 
midst of their active work, their pupils came 
fresh from the teaching that had been the joy 
and inspiration of their school days, some heart- 
broken with the loss of their dear teacher. When 
Miss Caryl rested at last in the church she loved 
so well, she had been separated for years from 
the school that had looked to her as its great 
mother. But Miss Caryl's sweet face had looked 
down upon the later classes from her portrait, 
and there was no girl who did not know her as 
the best friend of the school. A great number of 
the pupils of the school had come directly from 
their classrooms to the church, and as their awed 
faces were lifted and their voices joined with 
those of the great company of graduates in sing- 
ing the school hymn, it was a reverent and grate- 
ful throng that filled the old church that day. 

52 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

So significant and touching was the sight that 
Dr. Mann, the rector of Trinity, in speaking of 
it afterwards said that to him it was most im- 
pressive that such a service could have been held 
so long after Miss Caryl's work was over and 
also a great testimony to her power and influence 
as a teacher and friend. 

Through the last years of Miss Caryl's life 
which had shut her away from all she loved in 
life, her old friends and the pupils on whom she 
had lavished so much love and care did not for- 
get her. More than a year after she died, and 
sixteen years after she gave up her work in 
school, many of those who loved and reverenced 
her while her gracious presence still moved 
among them, gathered on May 2, 19 19, in the 
old classic hall of the High School, and held a 
memorial meeting in her honor. 

On this occasion the fine portrait of Miss 
Caryl, painted by Miss Grace Geer, of the class 
of 1873, stood upon the platform with pots of 
roses set on either side, the long branches of clus- 
tering pink blossoms framing the picture of that 
well-loved face. 



MEMORIAL MEETING 

FOR 

Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

Held in the School Hall 
May 2, 1 91 9 

BY THE 

Girls' High School Association, Boston 



O strong and faithful soul, serenely bright, 
The hurrying seasons bless thee as they go, 
And each doth give thee all it may bestow: 
The hopefulness that makes the cheerful might 
Of springtime; summer's joyous love and light; 
The patient strength that lies 'neath winter's snow; 
And warmth serene of autumn's passing glow, — 
All these the years have left thee in their flight. 
And we, thy children, looking in thy face, 
Pray that some day at last we may have gained 
Even a little of the shining grace 
That there we find. Oh, may the flying years 
Bring us triumphant over all our fears 
Toward that fair table-land thou hast attained! 

Laura E. Richardson, '86 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

Greeting by the President of the Girls' High School Association, 

Miss Rachel Rosnosky, Class of 1898. 
Introduction by the President of Miss Elizabeth L. Smith, 

Class of 1873, ss Chairman of the meeting. 
Opening words of the Chairman. 
Address: Mr. Myron W. Richardson, Principal of the Girls* 

High School. 
Music: The School Ode. 

Brief Sketch of Miss Caryl's Life by the Chairman. 
Addresses: Professor Charles E. Fay of Tufts College. 

Rev. Alexander Mann, D.D., Rector of Trinity 
Church. 
Anthem: Consider and Hear Me. The Choir. 
Reading of Letters from Miss Eliza G. Swett, Class of 1855. 
Mrs. Mary Lathrop Tucker, Teacher in the school from 

1875 to 1881. 
Mrs. Julia Jellison Wright, Class of 1861. 
Addresses: Miss Mary C. Mellyn, Class of 1887, Assistant 
Superintendent of the Schools of Boston. 
Miss Katharine H. Shute, Class of 1879, Teacher 

in the Boston Normal School. 
Miss Elizabeth L. Smith. 
Hymn : For all the Saints. 
Announcement of the founding of the Harriet Elizabeth 

Caryl Memorial Scholarship. 
School Hymn: Thine Forever. 

The music for this meeting was furnished by a small choir, 
trained and led by Mrs. Willianna Folsom, of the class of 
1878. The members of the choir were graduates and present 
pupils of the school together with outside friends. 

Mrs. FoLsoM was assisted by Mr. Bertram Currier, 'cellist, 
and Miss Linda Ekman, pianist. 

Miss Rachel Rosnosky, president of the 
Girls' High School Association, opened the meet- 
ing with a few gracious words of welcome to the 

57 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

graduates of the past years who had come to 
honor the beloved teacher who had been their 
joy and inspiration. After this cordial greeting, 
Miss Rosnosky turned to Miss Elizabeth L. 
Smith as one who had been, as pupil and teacher 
in the school, an associate and dear friend of 
Miss Caryl for more than thirty years, and trans- 
ferred the chairmanship of the Memorial Meet- 
ing to her hands. 

In the following pages a report is given, in 
part, of the addresses that were made. 

Opening Words by the Chairman 
We have come home to our school at the call of 
our dear teacher and friend. Miss Caryl. We 
recall the radiant occasion of which she was the 
central figure, when at the fiftieth anniversary 
of the school, this hall was crowded with Miss 
Caryl's pupils, who loved to do her honor. To- 
night let us see upon this platform the same 
gracious and beautiful figure turning upon us a 
face lighted up with her dear familiar smile of 
loving greeting. 

Address of Mr. Richardson 
Miss Caryl was a woman of wonderful power 
and dignity, and she was dearly beloved by her 
pupils. She was deeply interested in them, 
always kindly considerate of them, and infi- 
nitely patient with them under all circumstances; 
she has long been known as the mother of the 

S8 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

school. Her loss Is felt by hundreds of the 
graduates of the school who came under her 
influence. 

Miss Caryl did not lose her interest in the 
school with her retirement, and until three years 
ago, when failing health made it impossible for 
her to do so, she was always present at the 
graduation exercises, alumnae gatherings, Christ- 
mas concerts, and the like. It was during this 
portion of her life that I personally knew Miss 
Caryl and through her I obtained many helpful 
pictures of the early life of the school, its ideals 
and traditions. I soon came to feel for her the 
same Interest and regard and reverence that she 
inspired In others. With her passed on one of 
the most commanding figures In the life of the 
school. 

Address of Professor Charles E. Fay 

I HESITATE as I Undertake the service to which 
you have invited me this evening, because I feel 
how absolutely Impossible It Is even for one who 
was acquainted with Miss Caryl as a friend to 
do justice to that noble and serene character. 
On one other occasion in recent years I had the 
honor of occupying this same position ; It was at 
a similar memorial service for Mr. Tetlow. It 
seems to me that, with notable differences, there 
was a point of marked likeness between these 
two able teachers In the Boston schools, and that 
it lay in their strength, their stability of char- 

59 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

acter. Not only their pupils and the teachers 
associated with them, but all who have had the 
honor of being in any way connected with them, 
can now fully realize the worth of their friend- 
ship. 

Miss Caryl always impressed me as the type 
of gentle, strong, helpful Christian womanhood. 
While my acquaintance with her covered a pe- 
riod of nearly fifty years, we actually met but 
seldom; yet on no occasion without my recogni- 
tion of these dominant traits of her character. 

I first met her while I was still an undergradu- 
ate, passing part of my summer vacation in my 
student quarters at Tufts College. Professor 
John P. Marshall, of our department of Geology, 
had invited the Senior class (I think it was) of 
the Girls' High and Normal School to picnic on 
the campus and later to visit certain interest- 
ing geological features of the neighborhood. My 
elder colleague invited me to assist in conduct- 
ing the party, of whom there were perhaps thirty 
or forty. My services were not onerous. So far 
as I recall, they consisted in helping the young 
ladles over the various stone walls of fields that 
to-day are covered with a myriad of houses. Al- 
though those assisted, one or two of whom I 
later came to know in other connections, were 
more nearly my contemporaries, I am sure that 
I was most deeply impressed by the simple, 
gracious, yet masterful, dignity of their teacher, 
whom they obviously held in high honor. 

60 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

Executive capacity combined with a keen human 
sympathy would have been my characterization 
of Miss Caryl in 1867. 

After my marriage to one whose family had 
already for a generation been on terms of inti- 
macy with hers, that casual acquaintance was 
renewed and continued to the end, or at least so 
long as that intensely intelligent personality we 
all loved and honored remained unimpaired. 
On one or two occasions when, with others, we 
were guests in her home, I can recall that she 
withdrew from the company to attend to prepa- 
ration called for by her school duties of the fol- 
lowing day. What better evidence of the seri- 
ousness with which she took her work as a 
teacher, of the conscience that she put into all 
that she did ! I had other opportunities of realiz- 
ing the extent to which this conscientiousness 
was a leading trait of her character. 

I consider it a rare privilege that, at the time 
when she had reached the maximum of her in- 
fluence and honors, I was permitted to enjoy a 
very intimate association with her for a period 
of several weeks. It came about through her 
joining a party of friends that I was to conduct 
on an excursion across the continent. We were 
to visit in particular the grand Alpine region of 
the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks and the 
Pacific Northwest, and to return by way of the 
Yellowstone Park and the Great Lakes. It was 
a trip to which she had looked forward with great 

61 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

Interest, as it would take her to regions of which 
she had heard much but had never visited. 
Probably no anecdote I could tell of her would 
more clearly emphasize that loyalty to principle 
that was coupled with her conscientiousness, 
than a reference to a letter that I received from 
her a few days before the party was to start, say- 
ing that she did not wish to interfere with any 
plans, nor to force her views upon any one, but 
that if the party was to start on Sunday, she 
could not go. It was with great pleasure that I 
responded that there was no intention of start- 
ing upon Sunday and that, so far as possible, 
Sunday travel would be avoided. A party con- 
stituted as that one was could not have been 
other than a congenial and united one, but I feel 
that we all regarded Miss Caryl as the culmina- 
tion, so to speak, of its dignity and geniality. 
Never in all those weeks was there the slightest 
expression of dissatisfaction on her part with 
anything that was in the programme. I recall that 
when we were about to go from Glacier House to 
Vancouver, and were to start on a Saturday 
afternoon and reach Vancouver Sunday noon, 
Miss Caryl arranged to start by herself the day 
before and gave us a friendly welcome on our 
arrival. 

It is one thing to have principles and con- 
science. It is another thing not so to manifest 
them as to be an annoyance to one's friends. I 
do not think it would be possible for any one 

62 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

here present to think of Miss Caryl as endeavor- 
ing to force her principles upon her. What an 
inheritance it is to have been under such a 
personality as a pupil! What an inheritance to 
the generations that grew up under that influ- 



ence. 



Address of Rev. Alexander Mann, D.D. 
I CANNOT speak to-night to this gathering, com- 
posed, as I understand it, largely of Miss 
Caryl's old girls, of her years of mature and 
effective work. I can only speak of the decline 
of her life. When I came to Boston in 1905, two 
years after Miss Caryl retired, she was living in 
that house on Myrtle Street, which has already 
been referred to. It was there I first met her 
when I called upon her as one of the members of 
Trinity Church. I remember the effect pro- 
duced upon me; I remember the interest which 
Miss Caryl took in the work of the parish, 
which was naturally the subject of our conversa- 
tion; and I shall always remember the cheery 
and hopeful way in which, through her sightless 
eyes, she still looked out upon life. Her work 
was done when I knew her, but her influence was 
going on. One might say of her, — "Does God 
demand day labor, light denied.? . . . They also 
serve who only stand and wait." Miss Caryl 
was standing and waiting, but she also most 
emphatically served. 

There were two members of Trinity Church 

63 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

whom I remember clearly, — one an elderly 
man who could not hear a sound, but who was 
regularly in his seat on Sunday. He knew the 
service by heart, and so was able to follow 
although he could not hear one sound of the 
preacher's voice or one note of the organ. The 
other was Miss Caryl, from whom all sight was 
taken away. Those two people impressed me 
as two of the most earnest worshippers in that 
congregation. 

I also remember the meetings of the Woman's 
Auxiliary, that great missionary society of the 
Church which reaches all over the world, and 
which raises hundreds of thousands of dollars 
for its mission work. I can remember going to 
these meetings, and there finding Miss Caryl 
keenly interested in all that was going on, listen- 
ing eagerly to whatever the speaker of the day 
had to say, and showing in every way the same 
interest in the great work of the extension of 
Christ's kingdom. It is interesting to be told, 
as I was to-day, that that society really came 
out of a much smaller society known as the 
Dakota League, in which Miss Caryl was one of 
the first members. She was one of the foremost 
disciples of Bishop Whipple, whose life was 
consecrated to the Sioux Indians. It may be 
that her sense of justice had something to do 
with it. It may very well be that she felt there 
was something due to the American Indians by 
the people of the United States. At any rate, 

64 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

what is certain is that for years she was one of 
the most interested and helpful members of the 
early missionary society known as the Dakota 
League out of which came the Woman's Aux- 
iliary. 

I should like to say one other word. It is 
interesting that you should all be gathered here 
in grateful memory of a public school teacher. 
I think it is a good sign. Lowell said about 
Lincoln, — "Great Captains with their guns and 
drums disturb our judgments for the hour.'* 
That is a fair example of the conditions to-day. 
It is rather helpful to find that, in these days 
when we are thinking of the return of the 
soldiers, there should be a gathering like this to 
honor a teacher in one of our public schools, — 
one whose work though far-reaching was for the 
most part unseen. 

We are reading a great deal to-day about the 
necessity of "Americanization" in the United 
States. We are reading a great deal about the 
organization which shall bring about that 
Americanization. Congress is talking about this 
very thing. Thoughtful citizens are talking 
about it. After all, is there any one thing that 
exists to-day, or anything that the wit of man 
can contrive in this matter of Americanization, 
that can compare with the public school? I do 
not think there is. 

I cannot forget that years ago when I went as 
a young Deacon to Buffalo (where I am inter- 
ns 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

ested to learn Miss Caryl was born), my work 
was on the East Side where the parish was made 
up of workingmen, — men who handled freight, 
brakemen on the trains, and the like. We had a 
very large number of Germans in our congrega- 
tion. I suppose they went to the Episcopal 
Church because it reminded them of the Church 
in which they had been brought up, and I re- 
member going around to visit those young Ger- 
man mothers. (I always went into the kitchen, 
because that was where they were to be found.) 
One after another would say, "Mr. Mann, I 
wish you would speak to Hans and tell him how 
important it is that he should keep up his Ger- 
m.an. We speak it in the family because we 
believe that when he grows up it will be useful 

to him." I would say, "Now, Mrs. S , what 

is the matter? Why does n't Hans speak Ger- 
man.'*" She would answer that Hans was afraid 
if he spoke German at home he would let a word 
drop in the school, and the boys would call him 
"A Little Dutchman," and Hans would not 
stand for that. Now, that was twenty-five 
years ago. Hans has been in America all that 
time, and the German-American people have 
been loyal citizens, as you know. I welcome all 
the agencies which take care of the men and 
women who come to make their homes in our 
country, but for the child, there is no agency 
like our public school. 

Something has been said to-night about the 

66 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

Impression Miss Caryl made upon all with whom 
she came in contact, and it has been referred 
justly to her character. I wish people bore that 
in mind more. We are told sometimes that the 
public school cannot teach religion. The public 
school does teach religion in the most effective 
way in which religion can be taught. The school 
teaches it through the unconscious influence of 
Christian example. I do not know of any influ- 
ence as lasting as this. Some have the unpleas- 
ant habit of contrasting our preaching with our 
practice. No one can say anything about that 
unconscious preaching which Is the result of a 
Christian character and Christian love. As long 
as we have in our public schools men and women 
of Christian faith and Christian love, we have the 
most effective sort of preaching of the religion of 
Christ. 

Now that Is unquestionably what our friend 
Miss Caryl did. She revealed the gospel of 
Christ to many a thoughtless girl who probably 
did not think anything of It at the time, but who 
in years after wondered what was the cause of 
that sweet strain which she so admired in Miss 
Caryl, and she came to see that it was just the 
natural outcome of Miss Caryl's Christian faith. 

I think you do well in these days to come to- 
gether as you have to-night and pay this tribute 
of respect to a public school teacher who taught 
far more than the subjects in the curriculum, 
and who brought to bear upon hundreds of lives 

67 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

a most potent and lasting influence of Christian 
example. 

Letter from Miss Eliza G. Swett 

As a classmate of Miss Caryl in the old Mason 
Street Normal School at its opening, may I send 
my loving tribute to her memory? We all ad- 
mired and loved her, but as years passed on, she 
and I, both busy in teaching, seldom met, 
though we met always with the same loving 
interest of earlier days. I recall so vividly the 
trio, Harriet E. Caryl, Helen Avery and Mar- 
garet Badger, bright lights in the Normal chain. 

At the dedication of the new building on 
Newton Street I was so happy to give my mite 
in form of a hymn to be sung, and my heart was 
ever with the graduating classes. 

Harriet E. Caryl has endeared herself to 
thousands of pupils who will "rise up and call 
her blessed." And this is her fitting memorial. 

As I am now an invalid, I can only send my 
hearty greetings to the gathering on May 2d. 

Letter from Mrs. Mary Lathrop Tucker 

I HAVE been asked to write from the standpoint 
of a teacher coming into the school with no 
previous acquaintance with Miss Caryl. I be- 
lieve I was first struck by her capability in a 
high administrative position. I marvelled at her 
masterly manipulation of the complicated and 
variable school programme. It seemed to me that 

68 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

the schedule was incessantly changing to accom- 
modate a new class or a shift among teachers or, 
in the true spirit of the school, to enable some 
ambitious group, or possibly a single pupil, to 
take an extra subject outside the regular class 
work. 

But more than her executive ability I came to 
admire Miss Caryl's spirit. So far as I could see 
she never appeared burdened by any labor or 
responsibility. One of my constant school 
memories is of meeting her with that ever- 
insistent programme which she would perhaps 
wave on seeing me and exclaim with a whimsical 
laugh and twinkle of the eye, "See! my work is 
laid out for to-day! So and so in 2B wants to 
take this or that in 3 A" — or whatever the case 
might be — "and so the whole row of bricks 
tumbles down." But she lightsomely tossed 
aside any expression of sympathy. It was all in 
the day's work and her strong and cheery atti- 
tude toward any task was a lesson and inspira- 
tion to me — then and ever since. 

Letter from Mrs. Julia Jellison Wright 
Miss Julia Jellison, a graduate of 1861, and a 
teacher in the school from 1869 to 1875, and 
again from 1878 to 188 1, married an Englishman, 
Mr. Henry Wright, and has made her home in 
England since her marriage. But the ties of 
loyalty and affection which existed between her 
and the school, and especially between her and 

69 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

Miss Caryl, have never been broken, and she has 
often come back to the school and written to it, 
so that she has always remained a part of its 
life and activities. She has carried on in England 
through the great war, a work as wise and loving 
as that which was so near her heart while a 
teacher here, and now on receipt of a picture of 
Miss Caryl, sent to her after Miss Caryl's death, 
she writes the following: 

"A little photograph, reproduced from a long, 
past day, was sent me recently by a friend who 
well knew what pleasure it would give. 

" It stands where I have looked at it daily, and 
has brought back, not only the face in early 
womanhood of her whose long life of service we 
are honoring to-day, but a host of attendant 
memories which I have been wishing I could 
discuss and exchange with some old friends who 
may be at the meeting. It would be a very com- 
forting interlude in the strain of anxiety and the 
turmoil of unprecedented events through which 
we are passing. 

"It is partly the unrelieved strain of these sad 
times which has brought out by vivid contrast 
the calm beauty of the young face at which I am 
looking. I see in this little picture with its 
individual grace of discipline and self-control, 
its own charm of sympathy, of friendly interest 
and humor, and with its fresh young earnestness, 
the dear teacher who when I was fifteen years old 
was only a few years in advance of me in life's 
march, little as I then realized it. 

"I must not take time which will be better 

70 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

filled by others to linger on the crowding memo- 
ries connected with Miss Caryl. Of school life 
(over which brooded the shadow of the Civil 
War), of talks in school and out, every one of 
which left its seed of thought or inspiration, of 
later years when we worked together as col- 
leagues, or of the still more recent years when I 
had more than once the pleasure of welcoming 
her in my own home. I sit and think of these by 
myself, in spirit joining you all. 

"But the thought I would like to share with 
you is that the lesson of this dear life is one of 
calmness, of control and balanced effort. Neither 
in Miss Caryl's mind nor in her work were there 
ever any of those high flights of genius of which 
the too frequent penalty is alternative weariness 
and weakness. Her mind and methods were 
essentially restrained and sound, such as lend 
themselves to the ordered and dutiful service 
which was the fabric of her life, and lend them- 
selves above all to that wide and wholesome 
influence It was her privilege to exert upon 
thousands of minds of the most diverse quality 
and race. 

"That influence survives and will live long in 
thousands of homes of the city which owes her 
so large a debt of gratitude, in thousands of 
hearts of pupils who to-day are calling her 
memory blessed." 



Address by Miss Mary C. Mellyn 

I AM glad to have a share in this tribute to Miss 
Caryl. It was not my privilege to know her in 

71 



Harriet KUzabeth Caryl 

the warm close relationship of personal friend- 
ship, for I am one of the hundreds of students 
whose life she touched and influenced uncon- 
sciously. 

The fundamental elements in her teaching 
seem to have been, first, a spirit of reverence; 
secondly, a spirit of understanding sympathy, 
and thirdly, a spirit of generous service. We, 
who remember the astronomy lessons, recall the 
reverence with which Miss Caryl taught the 
works of God, and the immutable laws which 
govern the operation of the great natural forces; 
— never once in her teaching did we fail to 
appreciate that not only His word and His work 
were in harmony, but also that behind all this 
teaching was the abiding faith of a great teacher. 

Secondly, we, who are the children of a newer 
people, recognized in Miss Caryl a sympathy 
wise and tender; an appreciation that our ideals 
and aspirations were high and fine and purpose- 
ful. Miss Caryl realized the fundamental 
principle of Americanization — a sympathetic 
appreciation of all that the newer races brought; 
and their sincere desire to give of their best to 
the country which symbolized "opportunity'* 
to them. None of us can forget the smile of 
kindliness with which she met her girls as she 
passed them in the corridor, • — her friendly 
morning greetings, her personal words of en- 
couragement and faith in the student's powers; 
all her "little unremembered acts_of kindness 

72 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

and of love ! " These made the days in her class- 
room dear to us all. 

Thirdly, in the generous service which she 
gave so unremittingly, in the hours of extra help, 
in the wealth of knowledge with which she en- 
riched lesson periods; in the many hours given 
over to reunions of classes, — all this marked 
her days. Is it to be wondered at that "life 
came more abundantly wherever she passed" ? 

What was it all for.? this dominant faith, this 
understanding sympathy, this generous service.? 
It lifted the ideals of the young women whom she 
taught, and it gave a conscious and impelling 
example to all of her students who became 
teachers in our schools. 

By the power of her life, she helped them to be 
true to the great trust which is theirs — to the 
great trust to which Miss Caryl herself was true 
— to so live and serve that a "people's vision 
shall not perish." 

Address by Miss Katharine H. Shute' 

Your committee has asked me to speak for a 
few minutes in regard to Miss Caryl's influence 
upon her pupils. You will pardon me, I hope, if 
I repeat what others have already said this even- 
ing, for it has been my great misfortune to lose 
the other addresses owing to an engagement 
which I was able to shorten but not to postpone. 
The fact of Miss Caryl's influence for good 
over her girls is one of those great, evident, 

73 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

beneficent facts which we do not argue about 
because no one questions them. While she was 
with us, we accepted it, and we still accept it, 
very much as we accept the sunshine, and the 
rain, and the return of spring. Talk with any- 
one of her pupils, from the members of those 
very earliest classes, of which there are now but 
few survivors, to the girls of 1903, who were the 
last to share the privilege of being taught day 
after day by her in their closing year in the 
school, and you get the same unvarying testi- 
mony. A member of the school in the early 
sixties — herself now about eighty years of age — 
has recently written to me: "Although but a few 
years older than many of us, such was the quiet 
dignity of Miss Caryl's daily life that she seemed 
old enough to awaken our absolute respect. To 
every one who knew her in any relation, the 
crowning trait of her altogether precious life 
was her sincerity." And the writer adds later 
on in her letter, "These are the thoughts that 
stay with me for days at a time, when circum- 
stances especially call them to mind." Think of 
that, an influence that nearly sixty years after- 
wards revives in thoughts that are precious 
daily companions! In another letter, coming 
from the Pacific Coast, a woman of great useful- 
ness, who was a pupil in the school forty years 
ago, says, " I did not know that Miss Caryl had 
passed away. She was and is a beautiful character. 
No one who knew her could ever forget her." 

74 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

It has been my privilege — as one of the col- 
lectors for the memorial fund, with which we are 
to honor Miss Caryl's name, to read many such 
letters, breathing affection, loyalty, gratitude, 
expressing always pleasure in being given an 
opportunity — as one puts it — "to help keep 
her name in the living history of the school she 
served so well." 

A pupil of twenty years ago recalls vividly a 
few quiet words spoken by Miss Caryl which fell 
upon her like oil on turbulent waters, in one of 
those moments of tense emotional experience 
when words may mar, or help to make, a soul, — • 
words which helped this young girl to see the 
worthlessness of emotion unless it bore fruit in 
living deeds. And at the funeral service at 
Trinity Church, I saw one young girl — still a 
school girl — who was there not because Miss 
Caryl had ever been her teacher, not because she 
had ever even spoken with Miss Caryl, but 
because Miss Caryl had been the loved and 
honored teacher of her teachers and had helped 
to build up the school which this girl loved. 
Doubtless she was only one of many who had 
never known directly — but had inherited — an 
influence so rare and undying that it will always 
play a part in "the living history of the school." 

It is time to speak more definitely, more ana- 
lytically, of the nature of Miss Caryl's influence. 
She influenced us, but to what ends.^* She influ- 
enced us for good, but to what form of good? 

75 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

She was but one of a group of very remarkable 
women whom we hold in grateful and living 
remembrance. They all influenced us for good, 
— one making us long to be thorough and 
scholarly; another to earn for ourselves the phrase 
which so perfectly described her, "a culti- 
vated woman"; another by her sympathetic in- 
timacy with books arousing our desire to know 
books as she did, to live in them, best of all to 
open their doors to others. It was not in these 
directions that Miss Caryl influenced most of us 
preeminently. She had a very fine, clear mind; 
she knew her subjects through and through; she 
was always a student and always growing; her 
administrative ability was remarkable; but al- 
though those of us who thought about it could 
not fail to recognize these things, — the way in 
which Miss Caryl affected us most profoundly 
was to make us long to be good. We have a foolish 
way of talking about "plain goodness"; I don't 
quite know what we mean by it, but I know that 
Miss Caryl stood for that preeminently in our 
minds and always will. Now that I try to 
analyze that "plain goodness," I wonder if you 
would agree with me that hers consisted pri- 
marily in a scrupulous conscientiousness — a 
sense of honor and duty, that is, that could not 
be set aside nor tampered with; and secondarily, 
in a kindness so constant, so pervading, that I 
have no words of my own that can do justice to 
it and must borrow the words of one of our own 

76 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

poets and thinkers, when — in speaking of the 
nature of his friend — he says that in him 

** Glowed unexhausted kindliness 
Like daily sunrise, there." 

No thoughtful person can have lived in daily 
contact with Miss Caryl without asking what 
the sources of her unswerving rectitude and in- 
exhaustible kindliness were; what the hidden 
springs that fed the serene river of her life. 
These — at least — we are sure of, — a genu- 
inely affectionate nature, an almost phenomenal 
lack of egotism, and a profound religious faith. 

Miss Caryl's affection knew no moods; she 
did not welcome you to-day and ignore you to- 
morrow; she was always your friend, always in- 
terested in your enterprises, always pleased at 
your happiness, always sympathetic with your 
sorrows. You knew where to find her; you 
counted absolutely upon her. 

Her lack of egotism, as I have just said, was 
phenomenal. I think that I have never known 
any one else in whom interest in self was equally 
conspicuous by Its absence. Apparently she 
never spent any time in analyzing herself nor in 
explaining herself. She never seemed to be con- 
cerned about her effect upon others or their 
effect upon her. She was touched, and grateful, 
and even surprised, at the affection and devotion 
of other people for her, but she thought of it all 
in terms of their generous kindness, not In terms 

77 



Harriet Rlizabeth Caryl 

of her own worthiness. This lack of egotism 
was — I suppose — at the root of the very 
wholesome and beautiful quality that char- 
acterized the devotion which her pupils felt for 
her. It was just what every right thinking 
woman would like to inspire, provided she 
thought about it at all. We felt toward Miss 
Caryl as one feels toward her mother, — toward 
a wise, companionable mother. Some of us had 
the wonderful good fortune to go away with her 
in the summer. What a companion she was — 
ready for every adventure, happy, even merry, 
equally friendly to all! I cannot imagine any 
element of morbidness ever entering into any 
girl's admiration for Miss Caryl. To speak 
plainly, I never knew a girl to be silly about 
Miss Caryl. One never hung about in the corri- 
dor to see her pass by; one went straight to her 
desk like a sensible human being, and always 
found there a welcome. Miss Caryl was one 
who neither felt nor inspired jealousy. I recall 
a happy after-school talk one day with Miss 
Badger, In which something led us to speak of 
jealousy. "I do not see why one person should 
be jealous of the affection shown for another," 
said Miss Badger, "now of course" — and she 
nodded her queenly head toward the room 
across the corridor, "I see how the girls love and 
admire Miss Caryl, but I am never jealous of 
her." That was beautiful in Miss Badger; I 
love to remember the way in which she said it; 

78 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

but it was partly that straight-forward, trans- 
parent, unassuming quality in Miss Caryl that 
made it impossible to be jealous of her. 

I should be very sorry to give the impression 
that Miss Caryl was good without eflfort. One 
day when she was helping me to see things 
straight — while I was still a school girl — she 
referred incidentally to the constant battle, the 
up-hill road, which she herself found life to be. 
And she added in a tone almost of reverence 
that her mother — who seemed to her very 
nearly perfect — had told her that she too was 
still struggling to be good. 

Miss Caryl never made any secret of the source 
to which she turned for help and inspiration in 
her own struggle. She was as far from concealing 
her strong religious faith and feeling as she was 
from any pharisaical exhibition of it. I don't 
quite know how we knew, but we knew abso- 
lutely that her life was consecrated; that the 
Master Whom she served was as actual a pres- 
ence in her daily life as the earthly friends whom 
she loved. Each great decision was made in 
the light of His wisdom; each faithful fulfilment 
of duty was accomplished in the joy of His 
presence. 

Address of Miss Elizabeth L. Smith 

This has been Miss Caryl's evening, perhaps 
even more truly than that other to which we 
turned in memory at the opening of our meet- 

79 



Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 

ing. We have felt her with us and I believe that 
her spirit, always so true and so humble, knows 
that we have spoken the truth about her. Once 
more, as so often before, she is sending us home 
from school with the desire and the inspiration 
to be more worthy of her teaching and example. 
With her how perfectly teaching and example 
were one! 

Her light shone steadily before us to the glory 
of her Father in Heaven. Becoming a little 
child she entered the Kingdom of Heaven and 
showed us the light and peace in which she 
dwelt. 

Can we not hear her now, saying: "I thank 
God that I have meant this to you. Try to be 
good children of our Heavenly Father." That 
we may hear this message in Miss Caryl's own 
words, I want to share with you two of my 
dearest memories of her. 

Just as Miss Caryl was beginning her work, 
there came a time of delicate health which 
brought anxious fears lest she would never be 
strong enough or good enough to teach. She 
carried the trouble to her rector. Dr. Hunting- 
ton. I will tell you the story in her own words. 



<< 



Dr. Huntington said to me: 'My dear child, 
I want you to stop all this, and every morning, 
before you go out to your work, kneel down and 
tell our Heavenly Father that you have a day's 
work to do for Him, and that you are going to 
try to do it, trusting Him to give you the 

80 



Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 

strength for It. Then go out and do it. At 
night come back and tell Him that if you have n't 
succeeded you will try again to-morrow. Do 
this every day of your life.' — And I have.^'' 

The many letters which I have received from 
Miss Caryl are full of expressions which reveal 
this childlike relation to God. I will share with 
you one of these, which I find in a reply to a letter 
of mine written to Miss Caryl upon her birthday, 
in which I had tried to make her understand what 
she was to the school and to us all. She replied : 

" I am sure this is no outburst of birthday 
affection. I will take it, dear child, as an inspira- 
tion, and I will try to become more like what 
my Heavenly Father meant me to be when He 
made me." 

My first gift from Miss Caryl was a copy of 
Faber's Hymns, a book which she deeply loved, 
for her spirit found itself at home with the 
childlike faith of the poet. Two lines from one 
of her favorites tell the story of her life. 

"Time and obedience are enough 
And thou a saint shalt be." 

So circled lives she with Love's holy light, 
That from the shade of self she walketh free; 
She hath a natural, wise sincerity, 
A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her 
A dignity as moveless as the centre; 
So that no influence of earth can stir 
Her steadfast courage, nor can take away 
The holy peacefulness, which, night and day. 
Unto her queenly soul doth minister. 

James Russell Lowell 



THE HARRIET E.'CARYL MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP 

All members of the Girls' High School, whether they 
were so happy as to have Miss Caryl for a teacher or not, 
feel that in her life and work we have a priceless possession 
which we must preserve for the school by establishing 
there a permanent memorial of her. 

The most fitting form for such a memorial seems to be 
a scholarship fund, the income of which shall be given 
every year to a member of the graduating class whom her 
teachers consider worthy to receive it. 

The word scholarship is used in its broadest sense, so 
that the gift may be used for study at a college or for any 
form of preparation for service which may be approved by 
the committee having it in charge. 

This form of memorial seems the one which would best 
please Miss Caryl. She was always helping others in the 
spirit of love, and in this memorial we make it possible for 
her to keep this beautiful ministry unbroken. 

The Girls' High School Association has committed to 
its branch, the Samuel Eliot Memorial Association, the 
work of raising the Memorial Fund. About three thou- 
sand dollars have already been received and the work is 
still going on. 

It is earnestly hoped that every graduate of the school 
and every friend of Miss Caryl may have a share in her 
memorial. 

No gift can be too large, nor any too small to be offered, 
since all are given as a sincere expression of true apprecia- 
tion and grateful love. 

Gifts to the scholarship may be sent at any time to the 
treasurer of the Memorial Fund, Miss Ida Hunneman, 
II Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Rqxbury, Massachusetts. 



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